


handshake

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Pacific Rim AU, is it drift compatible if they're just a hot mess together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5557004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My door is always open." A statement that Kirei will regret, sooner or later.</p>
<hr/>
<p>A Pacific Rim/Fate fusion/crossover thing! For Fim!</p>
            </blockquote>





	handshake

**Author's Note:**

> Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  
> — James 4:4

The priest gave the same sermon, every week. Those who had heard it before came again, for the support they drew from the familiarity of it all. When the world had changed and the kaiju had attacked, there hadn't been any consistency, no familiarity to ground themselves in — and it had been men like this who had grounded them. New faces came because they were hoping to find solace. For Kirei, it was nothing more than habit. He was a priest, so he gave sermons, he gave blessings, this was the role he fulfilled.

And then, of course, there was the occasional heckler.

"When we are children, we are children and know only of the things children do. Our sorrow and our joy, our successes and our dreams are all defined but what we know, as children. Naivety, ignorance and a way of not knowing. That is how we are born. But we rise above, we grow up and we become men. And women."

He's been at the base for several years, the only priest that they've ever had — and probably the only priest that they ever will. Religious men and women are hard to come by, these days.

"Grieve, mourn and wall. Change your sorrow to laughter and your gloom to joy. Hope lives with us yet, as we humble ourselves before the Lord, He will appear to us and bring us salvation."

He's had a heckler for three months, but a very specific heckler that waits for the sermon to end and then sidles up to the makeshift podium as the faithful clear out. He has a hero's swagger — because he was, he _is_ revered as one — but there's something permanently lopsided about him.

The missing arm, for one, the drag on his smile that makes it less than genuine, and the way he leans across the podium.

"Tell me, priest, do you really believe all those words that you just said?" A traditional greeting.

"Gilgamesh." 

"I want to know, for real, do you believe in all of that?" 

"Did you ever believe that you could save the world?" Kirei turns the question back around. It's, probably, more hurtful than he needs to be, but months of Gilgamesh has worn down his patience.

It's a low blow. Everyone knows about Gilgamesh, the once most famed hero — jaeger pilot, who held back onslaught after onslaught of kaiju. Who everyone thought would be some kind of savior in dark times until a category five ripped the jaeger in half and took with it Gilgamesh's right arm and his co-pilot.

It's no secret that anyone who loses their partner changes, but most people would say that Gilgamesh changed more than others. Of course, the keenest of observers would point out that he was still as self-centered and greedy as normal, but without someone to balance him. (It's funny, too, because no one spoke of his co-pilot, they all began to forget _before_. There wasn't much time to dwell on the past, anyway.)

"Hah! The world? Isn't it rotten to the core. Don't you say something similar, mourn, grieve, wallow?" Gilgamesh waves his hand.

"What's good in the world is worth saving and treasuring." This, was not so much a lie.

"Then what is good and what is not? Answer me that, priest. You can't say with a straight face that "God is all around us" or some good-hearted lie like that."

"God is all around us, as is sin." Kirei responds, almost immediately. His face stays neutral, but Gilgamesh takes it for mocking.

"If sin is all around us, then why should we choose god over it?"

"Our sins can only be outweighed by our actions and penance."

"Actions, is that it? Say, what have you done to lift the blight of sin from our shoulders? As a holy man what should be your duty, shouldn't it?"

"Do you have sins you want to be forgiven for? Transgressions you've made against others or yourself?" It is Kirei who straightens up, moves away from Gilgamesh, but only a single step backwards. "If you wish to make a confession, let us take this discussion somewhere more private."

Gilgamesh laughs.

"Is that an invitation, priest?"

"I'm offering absolution."

"I'm only looking for a good time."

_There's no salvation here._ He may as well have said. But the sentiment passes between them easily enough and Kirei nods — serene and controlled as he should be.

"My door is always open." A statement that Kirei will regret, sooner or later.

* * *

_Wild Gold_ had long ago been taken apart. Only the left side of the jaeger had been retrieved, anyway, the right side forever in the belly of a beast. But Gilgamesh had kept a piece of metal cord from it. He didn't even know what part of the jaeger it was from, but it was a memento and he kept it coiled around his neck. A reminder, a gaudy piece of jewelry, an unreasonably sentimental piece of garbage.

It was also one of the few things he had ever compromised on in his life. He had, ostentatiously, wanted to name the jaeger after himself. Gilgamesh. But Enkidu had insisted on something else. Not that it had mattered, in the end.

* * *

"I'm here to atone for my sins." Gilgamesh says, from through the door to Kirei's room. "And yet, I find your door is closed to me."

The door opens, but only enough so Kirei can fill the gap entirely, leaving no room for Gilgamesh to squeeze inside. 

"You're drunk." Kirei comments, pointing out the obvious. 

"Then! Then, shouldn't _you_ a man of piety and godliness, take me in and soothe my ills?"

"There's nothing I can do for you."

That isn't the answer Gilgamesh wants to hear. He slams the flat of his hand against the door, but it's metal and even through the alcohol he can feel it and winces.

"Doesn't that just make you a sinner like the rest of us?"

"I've always been a sinner." Kirei opens the door a little wider. "I'll get something cool for your hand."

Gilgamesh takes every invitation. It's not beneath him, and in fact, it's part of his reputation and it always has been. He laughs and saunters in, as if that was the plan all along. And really, it was, wasn't it? Kirei's room is spartan, so say the least. The bed is nothing more than a mat on the floor, and the dresser is barren of everything except a Bible and a small bowl of jewelry — containing a rosary, earrings and two wedding rings. There isn't even a mirror. Or a chair.

Not that Gilgamesh had been planning on sitting on the chair. As Kirei exits, shuts the door behind himself and goes off in search of ice or something — whatever — Gilgamesh sinks down onto the bedroll and cradles his smarting hand.

The mat is uncomfortable, he can feel every rivet in the metal floor beneath it and he's cold. But, from his position on the floor he can see a sliver of gold from beneath the gap of the closet door. When Kirei doesn't reappear for another five minutes, Gilgamesh sits up and goes to investigate.

Inside the closet, carefully organized by year, is bourbon. All of it unopened and all of it expensive, rare and worldly. Gilgamesh can't help but to sit back on his heels and be impressed. He takes two bottles and leaves. It is, after all, Kirei's fault for taking so long.

* * *

His wife wasn't much of a drinker, and by the time the end of the world came, the medication she was on had adverse side effects when combined with alcohol. In honesty, Kirei also rarely drank. His father would have thought it a sin, unless there was a special occasion, or unless they were imbibing in representation of Christ's blood.

But it was something to buy and to covet. Before the kaiju attacked, Kirei hoarded wine. After the kaiju tore through his city and his home and the entire cache was gone (but, really, it hadn't mattered). And then he started collecting bourbon, finding casks and bottles hidden away inside different destroyed buildings. As he traveled from base to base, he picked up thank yous from soldiers and their families, any who he supposedly eased the pain of.

For no reason, really. He thought often of throwing it into the ocean, but there was a small part of his mind that always asked: wouldn't it be a waste, to not have enjoyed any of it, before throwing it all away?

* * *

Gilgamesh delivers a chair to Kirei's room, a month after he filches the bourbon. It's a comfortable office chair, the kind with ergonomic support and cushioning. He shoves it into the priest's room and grins, looking just as victorious as Kirei looks nonplussed.

"This is?" Kirei asks.

"A chair fit for a king." Gilgamesh smirks and seats himself in it, leaning back and doing his best seated sprawl.

Kirei just 'hm's, but doesn't comment further and doesn't remove it from his room. Gilgamesh considers it a victory, especially when he adds: "That way, when you save my soul, we can both be comfortable."

It's much like that, for a while. Gilgamesh finds it comfortable in a way because Kirei doesn't react, doesn't chastise, if anything he ignores Gilgamesh with the sort of determination that few had. It was a fresh change from pity, or from people's gaze drifting from his face to where his right arm used to be, or the inevitable questions.

Then, Gilgamesh takes a bottle of bourbon from the closet, as Kirei stands in front of his dresser, reading the Bible or whatever he normally did. (Normally, reading the Bible, as that and sleeping were the only two things he did in his room, until Gilgamesh had made himself a permanent installation.)

"Drink with me." He insists.

"I don't drink." Kirei counters.

"Then why do you have all of this? Were you saving it for a special occasion? Twelve bottles, all high quality." Gilgamesh shakes the bottle. "If anything, it seems like you've just been waiting for the right moment."

"And what moment would that be?" Kirei turns from the dresser, looks at Gilgamesh who has sat on the bedroll, bottle between his legs as he works the cap off with his hand.

"Do you need me to spell it out for you? Celebration, lamentation, either of those! Or will you tell me that you traded both of those to your god when you swore loyalty to him."

"Faith isn't the same as loyalty."

"Ha! Then what is it?" Gilgamesh takes a drink from the bottle, then holds it up towards Kirei.

"Trust that. . ." Kirei trails off. The correct answer, of course, is trust in God, trust that things will turn out for the best — that all suffering is part of a master plan, that destiny will always be the correct answer. That there are no mistakes.

Gilgamesh takes another drink from the bottle and laughs and laughs. "You don't trust anything, do you?"

Later, Gilgamesh finish the bottle of bourbon and then throws half of it up all over Kirei's floor. Kirei tucks him into bed, gets him water and cleans up the vomit. It's true, what Gilgamesh says. There's no trust left in a world that took his wife, that spat kaiju out into the ocean, that left Gilgamesh in his room night after night, imperfect and strangely alluring.

Kirei prays, earnestly, for the first time in a while, but dawn slips in through the window and yet again, God doesn't answer.

* * *

The first time Gilgamesh drifted with Enkidu, it was perfect. He had expected it to be annoying or maybe intrusive. The idea of two minds meeting — even, maybe especially Enkidu's — had rubbed him the wrong way. Of course, he was so much better than everyone else, he was _the best_ that no one would be able to match him. (And, the smallest part of him that wondered, was he good enough to match Enkidu? The only person who would ever be his equal? Had rocked him to his core, more than it should have.)

Instead, it was perfect.

The feeling of the sun on his face, the warmth of a perfect day back home from _before_ , the taste of blood in his mouth and the reassurance that always came with Enkidu's presence. A punch to the face, a handshake, Enkidu at his side saying, is that all? There's still so far to go. 

The last time that Gilgamesh drifted with Enkidu, it ended with a feeling that he would never speak of. There was still a ghost in the right side of his brain and every now and then he could still feel another hand in the one he lost. A squeeze for reassurance, Enkidu's voice in the back of his mind.

He was sure, most of the time, that he would rather feel the loss ten times over than these terrible reminders.

* * *

"Let's do it." Gilgamesh, on the fifth bottle of bourbon — over all, not in the night — says. He is, predictably, sprawled on Kirei's bed and spinning the cap around on his fingers.

"It." Kirei repeats the word, just as tonelessly as he does every word.

"Drift." Gilgamesh grins. "You know, for the good of mankind. You must have heard it — oh! Of course you did, you had to oversee the funerals, didn't you? Isn't a water burial depressing. It's better when there's never a body to recover. Nothing to look at, bloated or rotten, no blood or guts or stench." He rambles, when he drinks. He rambles and Kirei doesn't mind it, because it's interesting. Because somewhere, in the back of his mind, Kirei continues to be intrigued.

"I'm not a pilot."

"Everyone can be a pilot. Did you know, one of the best —" He takes another drink, a longer drink, "Pilots I knew wasn't much of anything. A nobody, someone who wouldn't become anyone. So, just like you in the end, hm?"

"I have no interest in that sort of thing."

"Saving the world?"

". . . that sort of thing." Kirei repeats. But Gilgamesh has seen what he wanted. 

"You don't care if we all die, do you? It's the only way that someone like you can keep doing your job."

"Gilgamesh."

"A man of faith? A rock of the community? You're nothing at all like that."

" _Gilgamesh._ " Something shakes inside Kirei.

"What tempts you, then?" 

"Nothing." 

"Then drift with me, I want to see it."

"That isn't a reason to commandeer a jaeger." Something inside Kirei feels like anxiety, or anticipation, like he's committing a taboo.

"They'll let me do it. They've been begging me to do something. Clean up, try harder. Did you know there's only one set of pilots left in this entire base? And I'm better than both of them put together."

"You only have one arm."

That sparks Gilgamesh's anger, and for a moment it seems as though he's going to throw the bottle of bourbon. Then he sinks back down, smirking.

"It doesn't matter, in a jaeger."

"Find someone else to play this game with."

"Oh no, Kirei. I want you." Gilgamesh shrugs. "But I can be patient."

It only takes another two weeks, because then there are no more pilots at the base. And even Kirei is compelled by that reasoning. There's something perverse about him being one of humanity's last hopes.

* * *

Drifting with Kirei isn't anything like Gilgamesh thought it would be. There's no immediate warmth, no immediate feedback, in fact he isn't sure they've connected at all, first.

It's only darkness.

Emptiness.

Gilgamesh reaches out and because it's a drift, he has two hands and somehow that's terrifying. Everything seems _right_ except everything is missing. Someone is missing.

"Kirei!" He shouts into the abyss.

The smell of rotting corpses greets him first, then the smell of soil, and finally wood soaked in wine. Kirei comes sharply into focus and in his hand is a metal coil, a mirror image to the one that Gilgmaesh wears around his neck.

Kirei smiles.

"We've both seen each other's secrets, it seems." He says.

Gilgamesh flees.

* * *

It changes the things between them, after drifting. There's no secrets and Kirei can hide behind his shame, but there's no reason to. Gilgamesh makes jabs at him, comments on Kirei's compassion constantly. He shows up to the Sunday sermons to stand near the priest, put a hand on his shoulder and whisper in his ear, in full view of everyone.

The world is ending, so what is there to care about?

And at night, in the new bed that Kirei drags into the room one night, because Gilgamesh has insisted for so long on a proper mattress, Kirei cradles the stump of Gilgamesh's arm and accepts any damnation that comes from his desires.

"Where is your faith now?" Gilgamesh asks.

"I have faith, there's nothing beyond the rift and nothing beyond this." Is Kirei's final answer, and the reason why he embraced living as they do.

Gilgamesh finds it funny, and for the first time since Enkidu died he can't feel a phantom hand holding his, just the unnerving sensation of Kirei's fingers on his skin.


End file.
